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Saturday, May 28, 2011

"On the Death of My Cat"

"On the Death of My Cat" by Haruki Murakami

My cat died the other day. It was an
Abyssinian I got from Ryu Murakami and her name was Kirin. Because she
was Ryu Murakami's cat, the name "Kirin" comes from the mythical Chinese
unicorn- no relation to the beer.

She was four years old, which
in human years would have put her in her late twenties, maybe 30, so it
was an early death. She was prone to getting kidney stones in her
urinary tract, had had surgery already, her meal regimen comprised
solely of diet cat food (which is something that exists in this wide
world), but in the end, it was complications in her urinary tract that
took her life. We had her cremated, put her tiny bones in an urn, and
placed her in our household shrine. The house I live in now is an old
Japanese style house, so it's very convenient to have a household shrine
at times like these. It seems to me that it would be hard to find a
place to put your cat's bones in a brand new two bedroom apartment. It
just doesn't seem right to put it on top of the refrigerator, you know?

Besides
Kirin I also have an eleven year old female Siamese cat named Muse. The
name comes from a character from the famous shoujou manga Glass Castle. Before that I had two male cats named Butch and Sundance, the classic duo from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
When you have a lot of cats it gets annoying coming up with name after
name after name, so I do some extremely easy naming. I've had a mackerel
cat named Mackerel, and a calico cat named Calico. When I had a
Scottish fold I named him "Scotty". I'm sure you can derive from this
pattern that I've also had a black cat named "Black" before too.

If we organize the fates of the various cats that have come and gone in the fifteen years I've lived in this house, we get:

A) Dead cats: 1) Kirin 2) Butch 3) Sundance 4) Mackerel 5) Scotty

B) Cats I've given away: 1) Calico 2) Peter

C) Cats who suddenly disappeared: 1) Black 2) Tobimaru

D) Cats I still have left: 1) Muse

Thinking about it, there's only been a two month period in these last fifteen years when there wasn't a single cat in my house.

This
is kind of an obvious statement, but cats have lots of different
personalities, and their behavioral patterns, as well as the way they
think, differ from cat to cat. The Siamese I have now is that kind of
unusual cat that can't give birth unless I hold her hand. When the labor
pains start up, this cat immediately jumps up from my lap onto the
floor and sets herself down heavily, grunting like an old lady, onto a
floor cushion. I take both of her hands tightly, and out comes one
kitten after another. It's pretty fun, watching this cat give birth.

For
whatever reason, Kirin loved the rustling noise that plastic wrap makes
when she rolled around in it, and if someone crumpled up an empty
cigarette box, she'd burst out of nowhere to pull it out of the garbage
and play with it by herself for fifteen minutes or so. As to what
circumstances led to this one cat's habits, vices, and tastes to be
formed is a total mystery to me. This cat - this strange, energetic,
solidly built, vigorous appetite-having cat - is the complete opposite
of Ryu Murakami. She was a real free spirit, and was popular with anyone
who came over my house. When her urinary tract got worse she became
less energetic, but even until the day before her death, it didn't seem
like she was going to die like she did. I brought her to the nearby vet,
who let out all the blocked-up urine and gave her medicine to dissolve
the kidney stones, but as the night came to an end, she crouched down
onto the kitchen floor, her eyes opened wide, and grew cold. Cats are
creatures that always die rather easily. Her face was too pretty in
death–you might've thought that if you placed her out in the sun, she
would thaw out and come back to life.

In the afternoon pet
specialists from a burial service company came in a minivan to pick her
up. They were dressed just like the people in the movie The Funeral,
and they even said their condolences like they were supposed to, but,
you can just think of their remarks as a suitably simplified version of
the condolences you would say for humans. Then it became a matter of
money. The course from cremation to urn, along with the urn itself, came
to 23000 yen. In the trunk of the van we could also see the figure of a
German shepherd in a plastic storage bin. Maybe Kirin's going to be
cremated along with that German shepherd.

After Kirin was carried
off in that minivan, my house quickly started to feel empty, and
neither me, nor my wife, nor Muse could settle down. Family – even if
that includes cats too – is a living thing that has a certain balance,
and when one corner of it falls apart, it doesn't take long before
everything subtly breaks down. Unable to go about my work at home, I
thought I'd go hang out in Yokohama, so I walked to the train station in
a soft, drizzling rain. But even that somehow didn't seem worth the
trouble, and halfway there I turned back and went home.

**Right now I'm taking care of Muse and a cat named Croquette. There's probably already a lot of cats named Michael and Kotetsu.